101 active geysers spotted on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

July 30, 2014 5:41 PM

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According to a NASA report, scientists using mission data from the Cassini spacecraft identified 101 different geysers erupting on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. The analysis suggests there is a possibility for liquid water to reach from the moon’s underground sea to its surface. The complete research findings, and clues to what drives the geyser eruptions, appear in two articles in the current online edition of the Astronomical Journal.

Over a nearly seven year period, Cassini surveyed the south polar terrain of Enceladus, in a unique geological basin renowned for its four distinctive “tiger stripe” fractures and the geysers of tiny icy particles and water vapor first sighted there almost 10 years ago. The effect of the survey is a...